BLACKSBURG - During his 53 years, Jesse Ventura has held a wide range of jobs: a Navy SEAL in the jungles of Vietnam, a professional wrestler known to millions as "the Body" and a political maverick who became governor.

Tuesday night, it was Ventura the offbeat and sometimes off-color college professor who spoke to several hundred Virginia Tech students. Pulling about as many punches as he might have in the wrestling ring, Ventura attacked the country's two-party political system, called the president and vice president "chicken hawks" and compared the obscenity campaign being waged by the Federal Communications Commission to the free speech restrictions of Nazi Germany.

But for Ventura, who in 1998 became Minnesota's 38th governor as a Reform Party candidate, it was all part of a central message to motivate the young crowd.

"This is a country where you should be outspoken," he said. "This is a country where you shouldn't be afraid to speak."

Ventura wore jeans, a T-shirt and a Rolling Stones jacket to show he's "not your typical governor." And he poured his contempt onto the Democratic and Republican parties, which he said attempt to control elections by marginalizing third-party candidates.

"These two parties have virtually no credibility. It's all about winning, and ... it's power first to them, special interests second and finally you third," he told the crowd.

Ventura, who joined the SEALs after high school, said he believes the American people were led into Vietnam and Iraq based on government lies. He also called President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney "chicken hawks," claiming they avoided being sent to fight in Vietnam but eagerly took the country's military to war against Iraq decades later.

"I believe today to be president of the United States, you have to be able to sit down, look into that TV camera, keep a straight face and lie," said the former wrestler who has hinted at presidential aspirations. "I don't think I can do that."

Ventura received the loudest laughs when he answered a young man's question about why, as governor, he refused to return a Virginia regiment's flag captured during the Battle of Gettysburg. The flag is not a prisoner of war, he said, but a "spoil of war."

Afterward, several students said they would vote for "the Body" if he ever runs for president.

"Hell yeah, he's a good, common-sense, right-in-the-middle kind of guy," said Thomas Mazich, 21, who brought a book for Ventura to sign.

"Every argument he made, he's got backup. He's done his research," added Sam Winans, 20.